Hi, my name is Santana and I like glee
by sucker-for-a-romcom
Summary: Yes glee club is a social ranking disaster. It has ruined the majority of my high school goals. Stripped me of power and status and rule but I like it. So suck on that.  VERY STRONG LANGUAGE THROUGHOUT.
1. I like glee

**A/N: I've been writing this fic on and off since the start of season 2 so if reads as a little jerky and rough that's probably why. Since starting I have read SO many ****amazing**** Santana POV fics that perfectly capture the character, which makes me nervous about publishing this. But I'm done fiddling with it so here's Chapter 1. Hopefully updates will be quite quick.**

**A/N: Santana Lopez has a dirty mouth and this contains strong language throughout.**

* * *

><p><strong>Hi, my name is Santana… and I like glee<strong>

.

.

They say the first step is admitting it right?

Well here I am admitting it.

I like glee.

Jesus, that still sounds wrong.

.

.

Like is a tricky thing.

.

There's a bunch of stuff I love: my hair extensions; my cellphone; my family, in that automatic 'I have to' kind of way; a body-con bargain from Forever 21; God - on the days I manage to believe in His bullshit; Bri- - Breadstix, love me some Breadstix.

But Breadstix makes you fat, your family make you crazy and God likes to shit on you from a great height just for His amusement. So it's hard to legitimately _like_ all that shit.

So I love stuff just… because. Because that's what happens, that's how life works. Even a bitch like me still loves her grandmother, right? (Actually my grandma that's still alive is a massive bitch but the dead one was cool).

My hate list is extremely long and my don't-give-a-fuck list is unending. So liking stuff is this little area in life where it's about more than automatic loyalties or automatic write-offs. It's what I can actually work with; what I can tolerate while I'm stuck in Nowhere, Ohio.

And for a long time that seemed to be very little. I just needed to get through to graduation without getting too pissed off at EVERYTHING, putting 'Like' to the side until I got the hell out of here.

.

.

I remember standing on that platform with Sue and Quinn in the auditorium watching the first few glee kids sing that Journey song. And yeah, they looked lame: The whole choreography was awful; Finn was showing the first evidence of his fucking tragic dancing skills; Kurt was wearing some fucking hideous ruffled shirt and there were far too many fucking power reaches. But they did sound kinda awesome… the song was working for them and they all had these ridiculous crazy-ass grins on their faces. They looked insane. Like, I wasn't fully convinced the whole club didn't run off massive quantities of ecstasy.

Sue and Quinn were both sending off cartoon waves of pure resentment so I scowled along with them but I'm damned if I could remember the last time I'd looked that stupidly happy.

My main fear when I was realised I would be joining glee club wasn't the singing and dancing (hello? I'm awesome, k?), it was being surrounded by these smiling buffoons. Their lameness was so powerful I was sure I couldn't be around them too long without becoming infected with Lame Cooties. If I joined glee club I would get the Lame Cooties Virus and the infection would be fucking chronic. Joining could mean destroying all my hard work from freshman year.  
>Two years later and guess what? I was fucking right.<p>

My name is Santana Lopez and I am LCV positive.

.

.

Quinn forced me into auditioning for glee club. She had some master plan that was to do with Finn – whatever - I wasn't exactly listening. Then Brittany got all excited about the idea of choreographing something for the three of us and I kind of can't deny her anything when she looks so cute – so I played along.  
>I've always done a bit of singing and even if I never would have picked 'Say a Little Prayer' myself, working out the harmonies was cool. It is actually something I can do that Quinn can't. She can sing – in a sugar sweet kind of a way – but she doesn't know how to arrange voices. She was so focused on the success of the plan that she forgot to deny me the chance to be in charge of her, even if it was only for the half an hour rehearsal.<p>

We rocked the audition, of course. And then I was in glee. And I'm pretty sure that's what changed everything.

.

What's strange is that I liked it almost straight away; it benefited my alliance with Quinn; Brittany loved it, saying we could practice for her planned Spice Girls tribute band; Sue made it even more fun when she turned it into an espionage mission, plus I was going to get to sing more.  
>A week later Puck, Matt and Mike were there too. I guess I never thought at the time to really figure out why they joined. Not noticing Puck's constant worried side-eye glances at Quinn, it didn't really connect when Matt mentioned something about supporting a friend. But having them there to goof around with was fun, and distracting from the social lepers of glee I was still navigating around.<br>The double agent element made it even more fun and me and Britt had a lot of fun playing spies. It felt like a game. Or some sort of social experiment. Like none of it was for real and pretty soon Sue would get bored and Quinn would get her claws back in Finn and this would all be over. It would be nothing more than a blip in my high school career that I would laugh about in the future.

Then all of a sudden Rachel quit, April joined and Quinn's pregnancy bombshell was dropped. There was so much drama that I forgot to think about what the hell I was really doing in glee until I was stood on stage dressed in some heinous shirt and a freakin' cowboy hat.  
>We were performing in front of an actual crowd. I was actually in this now. April was drunk off her ass, which was hilarious but also made me a bit nervous. I wasn't worried about Cheerios or my rep; the only people in the audience were parents and old folks bussed in from homes.<br>I suddenly realised what was making me nervous was that I didn't want glee to crash and burn. I wanted us to do a good job.

I was dancing with Matt in the number and just before the lights went up he whispered,  
>"What the hell have we gotten ourselves into?"<br>That chilled me out a bit and then I was line dancing like an idiot with a stupid grin on my face.

[[[On a side note: not that I would normally admit this to anybody, but the Carrie Underwood song we were singing was bitchin'! Seriously, I know the girl is all country and she's got that messed up song about not attempting to save your baby in a car-crash cause of God or something, but those background fiddles have it going on. Plus, I can totally get behind that 'Before He Cheats' song.]]]

Of course I'd performed before, with the Cheerios, but I don't like Cheerios.  
>I respect it. I appreciate what it is but you'd have to be batshit crazy to actually like it.<br>Performing on the Cheerios is an insular activity. Hit your marks, remember the steps, keep smiling and don't mess up the tricks. Manage that and we'll probably win and Sue will be off my back for a few weeks. But it rarely feels like more than a drill exercise. The fun is in the winning.

Performing with glee was actually, genuinely fun in itself.

All the way through I could a voice in my head screaming at me:  
>WHAT ARE YOU DOING? THERE ARE GODDAMN BANJOS PLAYING! YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO BE RULING THE SCHOOL NOT TWO-STEPPING AND WINKING AT AN OLD DUDE IN THE AUDIENCE!<p>

But catching Puck's eye and seeing that he loved it too overruled that voice.

I got a buzz from it all; bonding as a group, hearing our voices together, and seeing the crowd's reaction… trust me I want to barf as I say this - but it made me disgustingly happy.  
>I was on Puck's shoulders at the end and I actually waved at people, unprompted – like I was in the Brady bunch -and I didn't give a fuck. I tapped gleeks on the back, threw my hat in the air, I became everything I most feared. If I'd seen myself I would have thrown a buttload of slushies at me.<br>But I didn't. I went backstage to get ready for another number. I had enjoyed it and now I was hooked. That performance was pretty much the beginning of the end for my successful navigation of high school.

Within a few weeks glee had become the most fun (non-naked-non-horizontal fun) I had on the average day. When Sue broke us up into Sue's Kids I was genuinely bummed that we couldn't all practice together and I was really excited when Brittany dragged me to the impromptu Nelly - 'Ride Wit Me' jam with all the other gleeks. I tried to act like I didn't care and was doing it as a favour but I could tell Britt knew I loved it.

.

.

**I like… Mr Schue**

He has issues. Some major issues that he needs to learn not to over-share with his students.

I could do without his sanctimony and his boy-crush on Finn and I don't want to hear about his old–time dreams of making it big. I really really _really_ don't want to hear about whatever unspeakable uglies he is bumping with the various teachers brain-damaged enough to actually find him attractive. I have to restrain myself from bashing his head in every time he insists on rapping. And his collection of sweater vests is truly offensive.

But I like him. Honestly.

Because despite everything, he is seriously dedicated to us. In a school where taking one step out of line can get you dropped by everyone that supposedly cares about you, we know Mr Schue has our back.  
>Even when Broadway - actual Broadway – was on the cards he couldn't give us up. He wasn't gonna say goodbye and just desert us to the McKinley High wolves.<br>He would never truly let us down.  
>And even when he's mad and preachy he would never run around and deliberately hurt us.<p>

.

Jesus H. Christ - Mr Schuster is Rick Astley.

In fact, that makes a lot of sense.

.

At the end of sophomore year when we were told glee club was over, I sat on that stage and _cried_ as I sang 'To Sir With Love' to Mr Schue. Thankfully no one mentioned it afterwards so I was spared the task of threatening anyone but it was still awful. What had these people made me become?  
>When we were told glee club had another year, I jumped around the choir room like a tween at a Justin Beiber concert and got so giddy I actually giggled. Trust me when I tell you that Santana Lopez does not giggle.<p>

Yes glee club is a social ranking disaster. It has ruined the majority of my high school goals. Stripped me of power and status and rule, but... I like it.  
>So suck on that.<p>

.

Glee is about opening yourself up to joy?

Well I knew a girl in 8th grade called Joy who was pretty fly and I never did get a chance to open myself up to her. So maybe I should have joined before I did.

.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: I'm still not entirely happy with this but the whole fic is going to get screwed over by canon in a couple of weeks anyway so I decided to just post it as-is.**

**Let me know what you think and thanks for reading.**


	2. I like the gleeks

**A/N: No response from Chapter 1 but I'm going to post more anyway.**

* * *

><p><strong>I like... the gleeks<strong>

.

When we started junior year after a summer away I actually missed singing with that band of travelling circus freaks.

Early on, even after I'd come to terms with the idea to being in glee, I was still thinking of it as an excuse to sing and a brief escape from Sue's tyranny. I had no intention of mixing with the natives.  
>I mean they are awful in so many ways and watching them try to do normal high school crap, like party on the weekends, can make my skin crawl. It's like they were grown in a lab to resist anything remotely cool.<br>But I can't deny that after 2 years, spending time with them has become more bearable. They do have some redeeming qualities if you look hard. _Really_ hard.  
>Brittany wasn't wrong when she said we were kinda like a family. And like my actual family, I still totally hate a lot of them a lot of the time but I've found other stuff too. Stuff that actually doesn't suck.<p>

* * *

><p>I like Rachel...<p>

The long and torturous road to actually liking Rachel came about by first gaining some respect for her.

I'm pretty sure that even the kid who cut some of his fingers off in wood shop last year could count on one hand how many people actually like Rachel Berry. Bitch is a nightmare. She is too loud, too smiley, too… Broadway. I may have come around to the idea of glee but that doesn't mean I'm ready to get all jazz hands up in this joint. Rachel's lack of social standing makes it physically painful for me to be around her sometimes and quite frankly it is exhausting pointing out all the ways in which Rachel completely sucks at succeeding in high school. But I can't deny that the girl is at least surviving. And at some point, Berry's crazy determination-to-the-point-of-single-white-female started to impress me. The girl has a goal and goes for it and kind of doesn't give a shit about anyone else and that is pretty ballsy. It is something that even the popular kids fail at most of the time.

Before I joined Glee, my knowledge of RuPaul was what was confined to walls of the bathroom and Quinn's incessant whining about her limp-dick boyfriend's thing for her. I couldn't truly appreciate how irritating the girl was until I was forced to spend time with her.  
>However, despite it all, the social ostracism, the gold stars, the goddamn knee-socks, I found myself actually respecting Rachel Berry pretty early on.<p>

When I joined Glee club it was as Quinn's back up and Sue's spy. Schuster was easy to get on board because he was desperate for more members and all the existing members were basically terrified of Cheerios so they didn't say anything, I also imagine they were hoping for some popularity by proxy. Rachel was the only one there that seemed to care about actual skill. After years of Cheerio training, it was something I could understand – just because you need someone for the bottom of the pyramid doesn't mean you should accept just anybody, you might end up with some fat chick with weak ankles.

Straight after my first ever glee practice Berry cornered me as I was about to leave.

"Santana? A quick word please." I swallowed down the urge to physically _make_ the diva get out of my way as Schue was still getting his stuff together and hovering in the doorway. I settled instead for my trademark glare and carefully crossing my arms across my chest.  
>"What is it pipsqueak?"<br>"I heard Quinn doing some vocal warm ups earlier and I think her voice will blend quite well with the groups harmonies and it appears Brittany is quite the skilled dancer which will certainly be beneficial when competing with the flawless choreography of a rival such as Vocal Adenaline-"  
>"Get to the point" I snapped and Rachel seemed to visibly swallow and continued with a slight quaver to her voice.<br>"I have not so far gauged your musical abilities sufficiently to ascertain your value to a club that I have put a lot of effort and energy into."

I made sure not to blink whilst staring Rachel down and put on my iciest tone,

"You expect me to audition? For _you_?"  
>"Not audition. Just… demonstrate a-a-ability" she managed to squeak out, now looking truly terrified.<p>

I'm not quite sure what came over me, normally I would be pissed at anyone like Rachel Berry making demands of me, but her determination and big scared Bambi eyes amused me, so I started singing the first thing that came into my head.

"_Let's go ouuuuut tonight." _I saw Rachel's eyebrows shoot up in surprise at me knowing a musical theatre song, and normally I wouldn't, but RENT is a classic and Rosario Dawson is my fucking girl, so I'm cool with it.  
>"<em>I have to go na-na-na-na-ouuuuut tonight."<em> Having a little fun and putting on my best Mimi impression, I started to circle Rachel, playing with her hair and singing into her ear.  
>"<em>You're sweet, wanna hit the street? Wanna wail at the moon like a cat in heat?" <em>I ran my finger down Rachel's arm and honestly, after the 'Push It' performance I had witnessed, I was amused by Rachel's deep blushing and palpable discomfort.  
>"<em>Just take me out tonight." <em>I bent over pushing my ass into Rachel's side and I couldn't keep the giggle out of my voice_.  
><em>"_Please take me – ouuuuut tonight. Don't forsake me… ouuut tonight. I'll let you make me, ouuut tonight."_ I tapped Rachel's nose.  
>"<em>Tonight,"<em> brought my finger to my mouth, let it linger and then blew a kiss, _"tonight!"_

I finished the performance standing face to face with Rachel and reached round to slap the brunette on the butt, causing her to jump in the air.

"Adequate enough for you man-hands?"

Rachel quickly pulled herself together and straightened up, slapping on a mega-watt smile that caused me to raise an eyebrow.

"Yes, thank you Santana for that very… spirited performance. I think you will fit in very nicely with the chorus and with a little work I can imagine your voice holding up for some short solo pieces." And with that, Rachel Berry-with-a-gold-star turned on her heel and left the choir room.

I had to hand it to her; the girl was a professional. From that point on, I limited all drag-queen insults to twice a week.

.

The turning point to respecting her probably came when there was that mega-lame sing-off between Rachel and Kurt (for the song from the show with the green chick).

I had been looking forward to it simply for the hilarious factor of watching Rachel get annihilated, but when it came time for the show, the level of contempt in the room was something else. It wasn't just that everyone seemed to want Kurt to do well; it's that they all seemed so desperate for Rachel to mess up (except for Finn who seemed so confused he looked constipated). They were like circling sharks waiting for blood. Even Brittany was automatically going to vote for Kurt because she said Rachel had stolen her pet turtle (I was pretty sure that was a dream as Brittany didn't have a pet turtle).

So there Kurt was, wailing away giving it his all and I was enjoying the idea of Kurt's bitchy victory speech and then he did this weird sing-a-line-at-Rachel bit with some super nasty sneer on his face and when I looked over, poised with a smirk of my own I saw Rachel's face open, with a little nervous smile and absolutely no resentment.  
>The girl was being subjected to a charade that we all, including Rachel, knew would result in Kurt being declared the winner and that one goal Rachel cared so much about would be slipping further away. But she didn't seem mad, didn't seem to resent Kurt. It didn't even seem like a game-face, it seemed genuine. She was just sat there, with no one on her side, watching a performance and waiting for her sentence.<p>

It was dignity. Real, inside dignity that's rarer than people think. It was also clear that she was completely _unafraid_. My big secret (despite what you may be thinking) is that a lot of the time I'm fucking terrified of everything around me. I've seen life shit all over too many people to live unafraid. But Rachel Berry was not afraid of the shit hanging above her. She was facing it with an open face and a feeble little smile. She probably got versed in it through her many facial slushies.

My smirk faded.

It was pretty ridiculous to claim anyone else in glee would do better on this song than Rachel and yet we were all willing to do it because it was required of us. Well fuck that. Santana Lopez doesn't do anything because she is _required_ to. I have enough cajones to admit talent when I sees it and to respect someone who doesn't let the bullshit get to them. Kurt messed up his big note at the end but the weird thing is I already knew I was voting for Rachel.

.

From respecting her, liking her grew on me like an odourless fungus. It snuck up on me.

She is still as unbearable as she ever was. Still too bossy, too loud, too self obsessed and I would still rather hurl myself off a bridge than actually listen to her fucking yap away about Finn fucking Hudson.  
>She's an asshole to me but I guess that's just payback because I can wind her up and she doesn't <em>really<em> hold it against me. She not some Cheerios pussy who is going to hate me forever because I kicked her a couple of times. Watching Berry cower when I go all Lima Heights adjacent on her ass is super fun but the next day she'll be back to chewing my ear off about melodic colours or some shit.

Also, my hormones have not let me escape the realisation that she is fine as all hell.

* * *

><p>I like Kurt...<p>

I'm well aware that certain nosy bitches think me giving him shit is me 'projecting my own identity issues' but actually... he's just really annoying sometimes. But most of the time he's pretty chill.

The first time I really acknowledged his presence was that first glee performance with April Rhodes. After the first song I was feeling buzzed and pumped that we got to change out of the cowboy get-up. I put on the blue shirt for 'Somebody to Love' and Kurt pointed out that my eyeshadow and gloss now clashed with my outfit.  
>I strongly considered telling him to go shove it but I have witnessed the magnificence of him pencilling his eyebrows (he does this trick near the tip of your brow that makes your whole face look awesome) so I let him work that magic on me. Turns out I can deal with him better when he's complimenting my bone-structure. Go figure.<p>

I don't however, appreciate his dictatorship on all things gay in Lima. Karofsky is already enough of a nightmare without Porcelain getting on his back about bursting out of that oh-so-glittery-closet. And God help him if he tries to fuck with me about this shit before I'm good and ready.  
>But I can't deny the slightest relief at someone else going before me. This shit is not easy to dealz with in Ohio.<p>

The Buckeye state has the lovely motto of _'With God, all things are possible'_. Apart from, ya know, getting married (which my fellow marvellous Buckeyes voted against in 2004), adopting, being protected from discrimination etc. if I dare to think that boobs are in fact as spectacular as advertising always insists on telling us they are. I won't even ever be able to file a domestic abuse charge. If it comes down to it, I guess I'll just have to the beat the bitch right back.

What happened at Prom was disgusting. Lima is for cowards. Those same bitches that were smirking as they voted and eyeballing him at the announcement are the same bitches that couldn't thank him enough when he won nationals for us in Cheerios. Cowards. Kurt knows it too. So that makes us cool.

* * *

><p>I like Mercedes…<p>

Yeah, yeah, we've had our differences, but there's no denying the girl is fairly fabulous.  
>We're somewhere towards being cool nowadays and it turns out we make a killer pair in many ways.<p>

Plus, she's obviously a far better person than me. If Quinn spent all year ignoring me after she had lived at my house and I'd helped her through labour, I'd have slapped her upside the head so hard…

* * *

><p>I like Quinn…<p>

I'm pretty surprised that as of this summer this is actually true.

She's still a cow (see above: i.e. Mercedes) most of the time and she obviously hasn't solved whatever mental deficiencies cause her to keep dating Hudson. But at least she's showing a bit of spirit now.  
>The way she used to be? Oy – talk about repressed! Robotic is the word that springs to mind – stuck-up bitch and heinous are a couple more. She was so tightly clenched that the first time she ever slipped she got impregnated by Puckerman for God's sake.<br>Before New York, the closest I ever came to liking Quinn was when she slapped me around at the beginning of junior year. Aside from the fact that I'd been itching to kick her ass ever since I met her, I think it was the first time she was actually honest with me. I'll take someone punching me and meaning it, over a fake-ass smile any day of the week.

Q and I lived in each other's pockets for freshman year but it never lead to me liking her. Christ on a cracker she was a pain in my ass! But a necessary one.  
>It was obvious from day 1 of high school that Quinn was gonna be queen bee. She's got the whole blonde-saintly-virgin thing going on. Or she did back then.<br>Blonde hair, a cross around your neck, a tight ass and a cute face are the key to making it in Lima. And Q had all that in spades. Never mind that Britt is a better cheerleader or I'm all around more awesome 'cause the game was rigged. Sue knew it too and that's why she made her head of the Cheerios even though she was only a freshman.

So I aligned myself with power and nobody can convince me that wasn't the right call. The gleeks aren't losers because they suck more than everybody else (well, not in all respects), they're losers because they never did anything about being on the bottom of the heap. It's all about perception. When Kurt and Mercedes actually clawed their way up to and into Cheerios everybody was willing to pretty much forget where they came from. The elite of McKinley ate that shit up. But as soon as they left, the targets on their backs were drawn bigger and brighter than before.

And me? I'm not any less bad-ass or stellar than I've ever been. I have perhaps, if it's at all possible, gotten **more** awesome in the past 12 months; it's just the perception of me that has changed. So being in glee is not ideal and I'm finding very little endearing about being one of the little people. But if I am forced to slum it, it cheers me up that Quinn is down here too and that the stick in her ass got dislodged a bit on the way down.

* * *

><p>I like Finn...<p>

Or more specifically, I like one thing about him. He's irrelevant.

At least I know that whatever life may have in store for me, Finn Hudson will have no bearing on it whatsoever.  
>Somehow, he was picked for top-dog at McKinley. You would think that he would need certain qualities to get him selected, just like Quinn did but whichever girl decided he was going to be the hottest guy in school must be gayer than me because he is definitely not all of that.<p>

He's... tall, I guess?

He acts like a douche a lot of the time but he's not straight up appalling like Azimio. He's just dumb. As a box of crayons. A very dumb box filled with very dumb crayons. In the special-ed classroom. In kindergarten.

He has Kurt's back most of the time now which is pretty decent and he does right by glee in the few minutes of the year he's not fawning over Quinn or Rachel.  
>That doesn't mean I'm not still pissed at hell about that fucking kiss-on-stage shit they did at Nationals.<br>I also got immense pleasure in watching him squirm when he got served by Rachel singing 'Gives You Hell' last year.

But all in all he evens out to be bearable. Better to have an ineffectual leader than a dickhead with conviction.

* * *

><p>I like Matt…<p>

Most people are oblivious to the fact that actually, my oldest friend in the world is Matt Rutherford. For reals. That boy knows things about me that no one else ever will. And, ew – not like that. I just mean; we were playing together when we were in diapers, he was there the first time I punched a kid in the face, he saw me fall out of a tree and break my arm when I was six, and he is probably the only person who is 100% not scared of me.

We don't speak much anymore, which sucks balls. His family's move was kind of unexpected. He seemed pissed at first and then he found out his new school had a football team that actual wins some shit sometimes and that would help him out when it comes to college and stuff.  
>So I got kind of mad that he was all of a sudden happy to fuck off to another town and I was kind of shitty to him when he was leaving… Whatever, he dealt with it. Because he's Matt and he always just deals with my shit. We still spoke on the phone and e-mailed and I gave him the lame-o-Lima-low-down. But then he started getting busy with new friends and even though I am NOT some needy chick, it was like he was suddenly hanging me out to dry when I needed to speak to him.<p>

So then there was the whole Brittany – thing. The fight, the cripple, the Lebanese t-shirt. Whatever. He didn't call for like, weeks and when he finally did he was all silently-judgey after I told him what happened and fuck me, I did not need that shit. He wasn't here. He didn't see the ridiculous-ness of Brittany and Artie and how badly Wheels needed a beat down. So… I picked the biggest fight I possibly could with him. I went epic. I called him every name under the sun (but he was used to that), then started on his family. I told him that the jocks at school only ever laughed about him now and I basically blamed him for everything that happened with Brittany and me. There was some more stuff too but I can't remember it all. Needless to say it was pretty brutal. I guess I finally broke his tolerance because he hung up on me and we didn't exactly speak for a few months.  
>At the time, he totally deserved everything I said but now… I don't know. We made a truce – sort've – and he calls me every now and again, but it's not the same anymore. Months ago there was all this talk about how we were going to road-trip to see him this summer; but now Mike's busy being Tina's bitch and Puck's always broke. Matt says it too far for just him to drive all the way here and it's not like I'm going to get Britt to come with me or, even worse, Finn.<p>

Whatever, I still like him because we go way back but it's not like I fucking _need_ him or anything. I'll survive without some buzzkill, borderline mute, who doesn't even fucking live here anymore. Who needs any of that shit? I'm fine on my own.

But it would be nice to have my boy back right now.

* * *

><p>I like Mike...<p>

Before Glee he didn't exist to me outside out the fact that he was friends with Matt and he threw killer parties when his parents were out of town.  
>Since we've been socially outcast together I've gotten to know him a bit better and the guy has always been chill with me. Plus he doesn't talk too much so I rarely have the urge to beat on him.<p>

When Mike came back after last summer and revealed he was dating Tina I tried to suggest getting him checked over for head injuries, my Dad can sort shit like that at the hospital, but he kept yappin' that he was fine. I guess it turns out she makes him happy and whilst I generally don't enjoy seeing other people happy, with Mike I guess it's okay.

* * *

><p>I like Tina…<p>

Hearing that she sang 'I Kissed a Girl' at her audition helped. Some drunken nights I admit to wondering about finding her and asking her if the statement was based on experience. What can I say? The Goth thing works for her.

I still kinda can't forgive her for breaking up with Artie though. Female empowerment, girl power and all that. I get it. Guy's an ass and she deserved better.

But it would have kept his ass away from Brittany.

* * *

><p>I like Puck...<p>

Scratch that. I actually don't really like him. But I can't deny he's my bro so I guess that counts.

That's basically the reason things got so messed up between Quinn and me. It wasn't that she slept with him. Well it wasn't _just_ that she slept with him. Whatever I need Puck for; it sure as hell isn't a _relationship_. Puck and I are complicated, Quinn knows that and she still planted herself in the middle of it all when she got knocked up. She caused a fucking shit-storm whilst she was at it too. Then, when it was all going down, Quinn told me to mind my business, when we both know Puck was my business long before he was her's.

Despite the way he acts most of the time, he's a pretty good guy to have on your side. He's dumb but he's a loyal fighter and he'll have your back.  
>Since Matt moved, the few times that I've actually ever want to talk about real shit Puck has turned out to be surprisingly good as listening.<p>

"I've slept with more girls than guys. That doesn't mean anything, right?"  
>"I don't know. Does it?"<p>

I kind of felt like shit making him talk about this across a table screwed to the floor. Puck loves to act hard and most of the time he's got the balls to back it up but I knew even he must be shitting it a little bit about being locked up in juvie.  
>I wasn't 100% sure why I was visiting him - it's not like he was going to be in here forever – but a few weeks into junior year and I could already tell it was going to different. I guess I just wanted to know that things were going to be alright.<p>

"Are you, y'know, okay in there?"

Puck plastered on his smile that he thinks covers everything up so well. I guess it does for other people but I always know what's up.

"Yeah girl, I'm not gonna be in here too long. Besides I'm more worried about what my mom will do when I get out of here."

I tried to give him the laugh he wanted but it came out as more of a grimace. We both knew his mom's only reaction would be silent tears followed by a blank look of disappointment.

"This summer sucked without you." He wasn't looking at me; he was focusing on his hands on the table. "No wonder I was bored enough to do something so fucking stupid."  
>"So this is my fault?" I knew I was being a bitch when I supposedly came to support him.<br>"No." I suddenly felt like shit for being a hag when I saw how tired he was. "I just mean – you're my girl. We always do it right. And I don't even mean the sex stuff… even though that is awesome."  
>"Puckerman; I've only got 30 minutes on my parking-"<br>"-I don't hang around you just to bone you." I didn't respond to that one. He looked a little smug at having shut me up so he carried on before I started up again. "I hang around you because you're kick-ass. Sometimes you're a bitch who gets on my last nerve but we're cool; we're always gonna be cool. I got your back."

I think I was getting my period at the time or something because I may have teared up a little.

"Whatever. Get out of here soon. We're supposed to battle that Seattle kid in Halo."  
>"Bros?" He held out his fist to me and I rolled my eyes. I was debating explaining to him all the ways he was lame but I wasn't sure I could do it without crying like a little pussy.<p>

"Bros."

* * *

><p>I like Lauren...<p>

Reluctantly. She may have appeared to damage the few brain cells Puck actually possesses but she has her uses. For starters she has and older brother than can hook us up with booze; she really irked Q when it came to the Prom Queen race, which was fun to watch; and I look extra smokin' when I'm stood next to her.

I also seem to end up liking the majority of people I fight. The fact that she beat me in that fight is proof enough that she is bad-ass.

* * *

><p>I like Sam...<p>

Not that it's that relevant now he's fucked off and left the state, but when he was here I liked him.  
>I even liked parts of him that weren't his mouth. Oooh - That boy may have had no game but he could kiss. I mean, he kisses like a girl which was an obvious plus for me but I imagine it will create some issues in the future.<br>He is basically the upgraded version of Finn. Still tall, dumb and effectively useless, but Sam isn't actually an asshole. He is kind and shit. He was in glee, football, dated 3 girls in glee and still managed to leave without any enemies.

I think that's better than the rest of us will do.

* * *

><p>I like Brittany...<p>

Yeah, I always have - from the first week of junior high when I found her trying to double-dutch by herself. I can't help it. Of the many thousands of ways people manage to enrage me to the point of hatred, Brittany can do pretty much always like her.

Anything more than that is a little bit complicated at the moment.

* * *

><p>I <strong>do not<strong> like Artie.

Never did. The guy's a fucking dickwad.

* * *

><p>While Brittany and Quinn have been given a free pass on their Cheerios' behaviour I remain the enemy to most of glee so it's not even like I <em>have<em> to like them. They've just gotten under my skin. Like a parasite.

So there it is. Two years of trying to resist it and I have failed. I like them.

Just shoot me now.


	3. I like sex

**A/N: A very big thank you to the people who have favourited this story!  
><strong>

**A/N: There is nothing graphic in here but it does deal with - _ahem_ - adult themes**

* * *

><p><strong>I like… sex<strong>

**.  
><strong>

**.  
><strong>

Being who I am – socially – and saying things like 'I like sex' tends to make people assume I'm a slut, and by some standards I probably am, but by a lot of standards I'm really not. I won't fuck for no good reason. Not for popularity, or cool points, or to make some fucking dude like me. I wouldn't, for example, fuck somebody because I drank wine coolers and felt fat. I wouldn't sleep with someone to desperately get rid of my V card and make someone jealous.

When I have sex it's because I'm horny, they're hot and I know we will have a good time. The closest I ever got to tactical fucking was with Finn and I definitely learned my lesson there. I _was_ horny, he is _kinda_ hot and it served a Cheerios' purpose with the added bonus of pissing off Quinn (and Puck). Curiosity played its part too. Quarterback, dreamboat of the school, Quinn's ex; I wanted to see what was really going on with him. Turns out not a lot. I'm sure he's perfect for some of the eyelash-fluttering, straight-laced chicks at McKinley but it was most definitely not doing anything for me. He's got no crunch, no flavour. The boy is Tapioca pudding personified.

[A big plus in the Rachel Berry column came from her whole 'girls want sex as much as guys do' speech – preach sister, PREACH!]

My first time was with Michael. The first few months of high school moved fast for me. I got onto the Cheerio's squad, secured a badass reputation, formed the unholy trinity with Quinn and Brittany and I got a boyfriend, Michael. He was a junior, swim team captain and he was smokin' hot. He was nice too. Not too sugar-sweet but not a jerk either (which made a nice change from Puck). He knew I was a bitch to people and he didn't expect me to change and be nice to him and still got me snacks at the movies and shit.  
>He was what a high school boyfriend is supposed to be and we usually had fun. By spring break of my freshman year I decided I was ready and so one night when his parents were out, we did it.<p>

It wasn't earth shattering but it was a perfectly nice for a first time. It didn't hurt too much, he was nice throughout it all, I genuinely liked him and we were safe. All in all, I think it was absolutely right for me and I'm still proud I did it that way. Especially when I look at the mess some of the other kids at school are getting themselves into when it comes to first times.

Michael and I dated for a few more months but he started to get a bit more irritated by my loud mouth and I started to find him more and more dull. We continued having sex but it wasn't rocking my world, his neither I don't doubt. I had worked out on my own time what worked for me but it never quite worked when we were together. In the end we just stopped dating. It wasn't a big dramatic blow out. We just agreed it wasn't a go anymore. It was kind of a perfect first relationship.

Then I was released to the wild.

For the rest of freshman year, I just made out a lot. I made out with the occasional jock at a party. I drunkenly made out with Brittany a few times too, but the majority of my action was with Puck. Our make out sessions started to get pretty handsy, second and third base were welcomed to the show, but we didn't go further. He knew Michael and I had gone all the way and he was already banging his way through the older Cheerios. It was pretty evident we knew each other's buttons, but we avoided going all the way with each other. I think he thought I would turn into a psycho clingy chick and I still thought he was too much of a douche to actually give it up to him.

But it was that summer, after freshman year, when I really learned that I like sex. I really like sex.

.

.

I went to cheer camp. Quinn went to Jesus cheer camp and Brittany was at a dance camp so I didn't really know anyone when I arrived. My roommate was called Kady. She was ballsy and I could tell straight away that she was the HBIC at her school. We could have easily clashed but thankfully she was chill and it turned out we got on awesomely. We made jokes about the fact that our division of the camp had 22 girls and the two non-white girls - me being Latina, her being black – had got roomed together. We sort of teamed up and took charge of the camp the same way we ruled our respective schools. We were the first ones to suggest any after-hours parties and we were the ones that managed to supply the booze.

Alcohol fuelled parties full of teenage girls with little to entertain them resulted in a few games of truth or dare and the inevitable girl-on-girl-kiss dare. I was, of course, game and I happily discovered so was Kady.  
>And she was an excellent kisser. She had amazing soft lips and a truly talented tongue and one night when we stumbled back to our room, successfully avoiding camp counsellors looking for kids out after lights-out, that talented tongue ended up on my neck and down my chest and her hands went under my shirt. It was insanely hot and my hands ended up everywhere; in the tight curls of her short 'fro and all over her rockin' body.<p>

We had to break it up when a counsellor came round checking the rooms. I lay in my bunk, pretending to be asleep with my heart beating out of my chest, trying desperately to control my panting. After the check, I heard Kady chuckle and whisper about having a roommates-night-in the next day.

That next night we were making out on her bed when she suddenly jerked away from me and said:

"You're so hot."  
>"I know right." I gave my most devilish smile and deployed the killer eyebrow lift I'd been developing.<p>

But when I looked at her, she wasn't giggling or messing around. Her eyes were raking up and down my body and she looked so… hungry. It was so totally exciting to be looked at like that; it felt like I'd been zapped by a lightning bolt. And then we were assaulting each other with a new kind of frenzy.

After three more nights of stolen booze and extremely heavy make out sessions, Kady upped the game.

"Dick never did for me what my own fingers can." I felt my eyebrows shoot up in surprise at the unexpected statement. She just gave a sideways smirk. " I figure someone else's fingers gotta be best of all." There was a long pause where we both just lay there, her above me, panting as I wrapped my head around what she was saying.  
>"You mean…"<br>"Sex," she finished for me, matter of fact. Like I said, she was ballsy.

In my head I had never really voiced the idea that this was where it all was heading. There was a brief panic where I wondered what this meant. That she was a girl and that this could mean something big. But the rest of me thought that I was too into it to turn back now and after all, it was only a bit of fun. And it truly was the most fun I had had in my life. She wasn't too gentle like Michael and she didn't piss me off the way Puck did. It was completely different and completely new. And it was colossally hot.

When I started Cheerios in the fall I was in the best shape of my life. My stamina was through the roof and it had very little to do with the weak-ass cheers they made us do at camp.

.

.

After months of never quite getting there with Puck, we had finally had sex at his house three days after I got back from cheer camp, whilst his mom was at work and his little sister was at a friend's house.  
>Loads of other people were still out of town and we'd spent the day hanging out just the two of us. We went for a run in the morning, got high at lunchtime, watched Goodfellas and by late afternoon we were just making out on his couch.<br>He'd been dropping all these insane hints about his cougar conquests and I couldn't tell how much of it was bullshit. Jesus knows there is not much for the bored housewives of Lima to get up to over summer but were they really willing to put out for Noah Puckerman?

After a while I decided to call his bluff and told him to prove his own hype. He didn't need asking twice.

As it turns out, as terrible a student as Puck may be, he'd been learning a lot. I was pleasantly surprised to find myself enjoying an afternoon of multiple orgasms. Of course he was so fucking proud of himself that he couldn't get rid of his smug grin and it made me want to constantly punch him in his stupid face. Instead I settled for giving him scratch marks on his back and a bite mark on his shoulder.

We were crazy hungry afterwards and so he took me to Breadstix. I had (obviously) rocked his world too because when we sat down he tried to hold my hand at the table. I shut that shit down quickly but the idea of having someone to pay for my crap again, like when I was with Michael, appealed. I'm pretty sure he would stop making me pay in for weed if dates kept ending like they did that day, so we made a kind of agreement that we were 'dating'.

I now blame it on the post-orgasmic/drug haze. I mean, what happens when I'm one day campaigning for President or American Idol or something and I have to explain _dating Noah Puckerman_? Maybe it can be my big mistake that everyone respects I overcame.

Ha. Overcame. Accurate.

We _officially_ dated for 3 weeks. It wasn't that much different from our normal relationship. Hanging out, watching movies, occasionally getting drunk and high. The only difference was now I put out and he paid.

The main problem was that we started spending too much time together - at least a few hours every day. We started constantly ripping into each other, fighting about stupid shit. We'd spend 2 hours in a blazing row and then have rage-sex in almost complete silence. It was fucking hot as hell but it was also damn exhausting.  
>The other problem was that 'going out' with Puck meant going to public places with him and the boy is barely house trained. I didn't really want out be seen with him and he constantly bitched about how much shopping I was doing and checked out other girls in front of me.<p>

It came to its end because I broke his toe. We were round the back of a movie theatre and instead of just getting me off, like I had politely requested, he decided he was going to bitch to me about paying for snacks. So I took my stiletto heel to his left foot. He was wearing sandals. There was a not-inconsiderable amount of blood. I dropped him at the emergency room but didn't wanna wait for what was clearly a minor wound – it was only one toe! He told me if I didn't sit with him we were over. And that was that.

I was back at his house for a COD campaign two days later but we were no longer dating. Puck always claims that the toe break was the best thing that ever happened to him. I can't particularly say I disagree.

.

.

Before summer was over I had one more conquest. Brittany and I finally went all the way. But that's a whole other story.

Brittany popped her cherry a few months before me in freshman year. I had no idea until she mentioned it one day at lunch; right in the middle of a normal conversation - well, as normal as any conversation with Brittany ever is.

"Do you think regular mice are afraid of computer mice because they're like, their version of robots?  
>Should I have tuna fish today?<br>I had tuna fish the day I had sex with Tony.  
>Look at that big cloud outside, it looks like a pig riding a scooter."<p>

I remember being briefly flabbergasted. Everyone knew Brittany would make out with anything that moved but would she really have sex for the first time _just like that?_ Then I realised that was a stupid question because Britt would do anything _just like that_ if she felt like it.

"Yeah. He has a mole on his back that looks like a cookie. It was distracting because I kept wanting to eat it. Then stuff stopped being funny and hurt a little bit and then it got really awesome. It was fun. You should try it. I love sex now."

I was with Michael at the time so I had no reason to care who Brittany was dating but I do remember being pissed off. At the time I put it down to the fact that she'd done it before me and then hadn't told me about it. What if she'd got herself into trouble? Did Tony actually give a fuck? Were they like, dating now? Did this mean I was going to have to share her?

Man, ignorance really is bliss.

.

.

Skip to sophomore year and I was having all kinds of fun getting my sexytimes on with Brittany and Puck. Mainly Brittany.

Puck had all the Quinn drama and some of his other hook-ups were so questionable I didn't want to go near him until a certain quarantine period. Puck and I tend to hook up when one of us is really mad or best of all when we are both mad at each other. He gets this angry brooding face that makes me forget he's a total asshole, plus he usually lets me get pretty nasty and work through all my supposed 'rage-issues'. The other exception is when we kill it on the x-box. For reals. Something about pwning kids on Halo Live and hearing them breakdown through the gaming mics makes me wanna get freaky.

Even if I knew she didn't spend a week without getting a new notch on her bedpost, Brittany was happy to oblige me at all other occasions: horny, happy, bored, need the workout. In the janitor's closet, back seat of my car, lazy Sundays when there was no Cheerios practice… Don't get me wrong; I didn't spend 24/7 with my legs in the air. I had shit to do what with Cheerios, glee, AP classes, homework, shopping, tanning and getting my 'stix on - but I have needs. And I always had a hot piece willing to help me out. Daily, nightly and ever so rightly.

.

.

And then there was Finn…. I guess I was having so much awesome sex with two of the hottest kids in school (ayo!), I forgot how much it sucked to do it with a clueless Frankenteen who didn't know what he was doing and couldn't find my clit if he had a fucking miner's torch on his head.  
>Whatever. It happened. I had my reasons and despite his puppy dog protests later, he seemed pretty fucking willing at the time.<p>

It was fugly. Trust me, things have to be pretty dire if sex with ME is bad. Not when I can do what I can do with _all_ of what I got. Because you can be damn sure that Santana Lopez can rock your world more easily than you can say the fucking alphabet. But even _I_ can't do a whole lot with 2 minutes 30 seconds to work with.  
>So I got cranky. As my homegirl Samantha Jones said, "When I RSVP to a party, I make it my business to cum" and I most definitely did not. I don't do frustration.<p>

(Seriously. A few times Puck thought it would be funny if he left me high and dry and now there's a finger on his left hand that bends at a weird angle.)

So I rolled off Finn and got my bitch face on. Apart from getting off, the other thing that can help with my crankiness is fried stuff with cheese and Puck always springs for a burger post-freak, so I figured getting not-so-Finnocent-now to feed me up would help the situation. I even thought about letting him get a second slice. I liked the idea of teaching him a thing or two.  
>Then he made some shitty remark about it not meaning anything to him and – whatever - it's not like I need <em>Finn Hudson<em> for any kind of validation but it is so not cool to talk that kind of trash straight after. I didn't promise him a fucking fairytale. I promised loss of v-card and I delivered. You didn't see me breaking his fucking nose and asking for my happy ending but that was only because I'm too polite. He was goddamn lucky to get a piece of this and I could give him a list of people begging to swap places with him. Shit – pick a name at random from the yearbook and they would LOVE to tap this!

So then I was done. I was over whatever sick curiosity led me to bed Farm Boy in the first place and when he decided to keep it a secret I had no problem with that.

.

The whole ordeal put me off sex for approximately 2 days and I was seriously considering the values of celibacy club when Brittany called me.

From the second I picked up the phone and she said hi I knew she was horny-as-fuck. She used this little breathy voice she only ever uses when she's got an itch she wants to convince me to scratch. It was the Madonna project. Getting inspired for new dance projects _really_ turns Britt on. Oh, and there were the Madonna suits. And the corsets. They had got her all worked up and I'd been so busy with Finn that I hadn't been able to take care of her. After a weekend of filming for the Vogue video – conical bra scenes included – she was a quivering mess. She spent Sunday night making me forget Finn's name. Hell, she made me forget my own name.

Monday morning before classes we had a quickie in the dance studio at school. I had that just-fucked shine for the rest of the day and enjoyed making many and boy (and girl) squirm throughout the day.

.

.

I was further reminded of my reigning hotness later in the week. Puck was trying his best with Quinn so we hadn't hooked up in a while but when we were working on 'Like A Prayer' he stood behind me before we went on stage.

"Goddamn Lopez. We're supposed to singing with a _church_ choir and all I can think of, is that even in jeans and a tank top your ass is so fine I wanna jump you right here, right now."

Hells yeah.

.

.

The lesson of the story is that I like sex. Fucking love it in fact. But like most things in life, I'm apparently too awesome for some people to handle. That means I have to be selective about who I get jiggy with.

The key is quality, not quantity.

Quantity of partners you understand, because it ain't only mother-funking Lionel Ritchie that can go all night long.


	4. I like girls

I like girls…

I've been making out with girls since junior high. At parties, for dares, during spin the bottle... I found out pretty quickly that whilst some of the girls did it for a laugh or to rile-up the boys, I enjoyed it every bit as much as making out with a guy.

Brittany agreed, which is partly how we ended up making out with each other so much. Not all the time, but at the end of most nights where alcohol was involved. Even when I was with Michael, I guess he didn't care because he thought it was hot.

In my head, I never thought about it in any more detail than that. But standing in the shower block at cheer camp, desperately brushing my teeth as fast as possible so I could get back to my dorm room and fuck my roommate's brains out, I remember having a small epiphany. Looking at myself in the mirror, I spoke in my head as clearly as if I were saying it out loud;

This is not drunken dares anymore. This is you, loving sex, with another girl. You still think about Justin Timberlake in the shower. But you think about Jessica Alba too. This is who you are.

I figured it was pretty simple. I am not picky. If it's hot, I apparently want to fuck it.

If we're getting all deep and stuff I wasn't thinking about any emotional crap. I was accepting that I liked getting off and apparently didn't mind the gender of the person assisting me. I figured it wouldn't mean anything long-term. The jocks at school were always game for watching chicks make out so it's not like I was thinking I'd get any grief because it hadn't yet entered my head that things would get any more complicated than that.

.

.

You know what's really amazing about girls? Don't get me wrong, boobs and lips and legs and soft skin are fucking great, but it's the _hair_. It drives me fucking wild. Brittany's hair goes on for miles. When we did 'hairography' in glee it was super awkward because I just imagined when Brittany thrashes her hair around like that in bed. Like I said, it drives me wild. I just love having something to yank on. I wouldn't do a dude with long hair - just, ew - it's totally not the same. With girls you never know what you might get; curled, straight, any colour in the rainbow, braided, bunned, flying round her face, all piled on top where you get to take it down, casual, fancy (destroying a perfect hairdo with wild sex is **awesome**, everyone _knows_ you just got some) and lets face it – girl shampoo always smells sweet as.

There is the worry about the jealousy that can come with meeting a hot girl with hair nicer than mine – but luckily I've yet to meet one. _Have you seen my hair?_

Kady has **great** hair.

I saw her again when I was at Nationals with the Cheerios. She was in one of the competing teams and she hunted me down on the first day of competition. She looked amazing. Her hair was scraped back but I could tell it was longer than last summer and my knees went all weak thinking about my hands dragging through it. She deployed a killer smile that seemed to let me know that she knew what I was thinking about. She started to slink her way over to me when Brittany bounded over and introduced herself.

Kady seemed amused by Brittany. National cheerleader competitions can be pretty intense, everybody praying for everybody else to fuck up, but Brittany will always be Brittany: ready to makes friends with and/or bang anyone she meets.

It was explained that Kady and I already knew each other and Brittany recognised the name (she normally can't remember shit so I was kind of impressed).

"Your friend from cheer camp last summer?"

She pulled a weird pouty face that I couldn't work out. Was she sad because Kady was the first girl - the only girl other than Britt - that I had slept with? Or was it because this meant she couldn't screw Kady now? (We agreed no sharing conquests.) Whatever it was, I quickly became more interested in Kady's reaction. She gave me a shit-eating grin that told me she knew exactly the relationship between Britt and me. The fuck, did she spend the last year getting psychic or something?

She looked like she was going to start in on something - get details from Brittany, maybe try and announce to my team about our Sapphic dalliances. She didn't get a chance though because Sue ordered us into a huddle.

I was nervous about the situation for approximately 10 minutes before I remembered she didn't have all the power because I was Santana-motherfucking-Lopez and last summer I had ridden Kady so hard she pulled a hamstring. I would simply have to make sure she was too distracted to stir anything up.

My plan of attack was simple, saunter over to her team's practice area and do stretches. Pretty fucking outrageous stretches that involved ankles behind my head and tit maximising arches. I didn't look but I knew Kady was watching, she fumbled one of her cradle catches and nearly broke a girl's fucking nose. We didn't speak again but I called it a victory when the Cheerios won. After Brittany and I got through with our private celebrations in the hotel room, I temporarily forgot about Kady.

.

I was reminded when I was back at cheer camp again at the start of summer. I didn't see her when I got there and I found out she wasn't my roommate. My roommate was some lame-ass girl with a double name like Betty-Sue or Mary-Ellen or some bullshit. She was putting up a fucking Twilight poster when I got to our room. No denying that Jacob guy is ripped but if I had to fucking hear about some deeper meaning to those fucking terrible books I was going to be forced to murder her.

I was definitely going to need something to distract me from her awfulness. Well – ask and you shall fucking receive because when I turned around Kady was stood leaning her hip against the doorway.

She looked so good I think I had a minor stroke. Her hair was in big chunky cornrows that reached part way down her back and were begging to be yanked on. She was covered in a sheen of sweat, wearing deep red lipstick and a customised cheerleading uniform so outrageous it made the Cheerios' look like puritans.

"God damn." Okay, so I lost any chance at playing it cool right there but you didn't see her.

She let out a gloriously dirty laugh.

"Well I have to make you pay for what you did at nationals. Throwing me off my game the way you did."

"Please. It wasn't my fine ass that ruined your chances. It was that sorry-ass routine."

"Honey, your ass could ruin empires. Bring them. To. Their. Knees."

Her eyes were boring into me as though she was trying to remove my clothes telepathically. I think it would have worked too if I hadn't remembered Dorothy-Ann was still in the room.

She obviously hadn't missed the sexual tension in the room and she looked like she had just discovered we were vampires. I couldn't tell if she was terrified or turned on. So Kady and I split.

Strangely enough, we didn't run off and have sex right away. We walked around the camp and talked. We hadn't exchange numbers the summer before so we had catching up to do. It made me remember the weeks we hung out together before we hooked up. She was fun, funny, badass. She was me – a year older.

Turned out that unlike me, Kady apparently hadn't spent the year on the DL. She was out. From what I gathered she practically rode into school in a plaid shirt, riding a rainbow coloured unicorn. She had spent the last year turning teenage lesbianism into a competitive sport. She didn't go into numbers but I swear at one point she said something about 'dozens'.

It was a bit intimidating. I'd had all kinds of fun since we'd parted ways last year but in actual numbers I was only looking at two. (Finn definitely didn't count).

Then she told me that despite her conquests she had been thinking about me a lot since last summer.

"You were my first." There were other people walking near us but she obviously couldn't care less. "I remember it being pretty great," I smirked just enough to let her know I agreed, "but I didn't know shit back then. I gotta show you how I can really do."

I gotta admit, hearing this sex tornado wanted to prove something to _me_ was an ego boost.

She made me wait four days. She would stare holes into me across the mess hall or at practice but would avoid me up close.

Then she showed up to my room in a towel. She was straight out of the shower. She dropped the towel from her body to prove she was in fact naked and then shook one towel off from her hair. It had been taken out of the cornrows and was in a natural afro the size of a beach ball. Majorly hot. Lets just say it was lucky Becky-Lou wasn't in the room at the time because I wouldn't have been able to stop what happened next even if she had been. I literally jumped on Kady and then we _really_ caught up.

"So I'm not the only one who learned some things this year."

"Quality not quantity babe."

.

.

One of the advantages of having parents who feel guilty about working all the time is that you can convince them to get you stuff. In my parents case it was a boob job. They were giving me all this 'you're too young' shit but all I had to do was threaten to go to some skanky-ass foreign clinic and my Dad was setting me up with contacts of his from medical school.

One week after camp ended I was all souped up and after two weeks recovery I still had the rest of the summer to take my new accessories out for a good time.

I'd used all my pull on the parentals with my summer surgery so a fancy holiday wasn't on the cards. I headed down to my Aunt's house in Florida instead.

My Aunt runs a _what she doesn't see, doesn't hurt her _policy so it's pretty easy to have a good time uninterrupted and the weather is a damn lot nicer than in Ohio.

.

I gotta tell you, I felt like the hottest thing under the sun last summer. My school year had been awesome; Cheerios won Nationals, glee was back the next year, I finally got to have sex in the locker room showers. I'd spent the first two weeks of summer getting continually ravished by Ohio's hottest teenage lesbian and there I was in the Sunshine state with a fantastic new set of tits.

So on my second day in Florida when I noticed a cute guy on my morning run I had no problem flashing him a lot of teeth and a good view of my upgrades.

He was on he same route as me the next morning and on the third day he was conveniently stretching half a block from my Aunt's house when I got outside. On the fourth day I got a name – Brad. It was so perfectly Americana, so fitting for his whole look, that I nearly laughed in his face. By the fifth day we skipped the run and he took me to his beachfront condo and we had an alternate workout.

It was fun. The boy obviously knew what he was doing and it was obvious he had money because his sheets were the expensive kind. But I was feeling too hot to handle to stick around with one person for too long so when he told me he was 23 I told the truth and let him know I was only 16.

That did the trick. The poor guy looked like he wanted to scan his place for hidden cameras and escorted me outside as soon as I was dressed. I didn't see him for the rest of my stay.

Following that, I started to think about Kady's tales of her year's research and I decided to widen my repertoire over the summer.

My cousin Natalia is a couple years older than me and was home from college for the summer. She goes to college out of state but she still knew plenty of kids that went to schools near her house so she got invited to a butt-load of parties.

She let me tag along to a house party with her and when she found me two hours later with my hand up some chick's shirt and getting a fine-ass hickey on my neck her only response was:

"Sanny - I had no idea. There's a club downtown that my friend Laurel goes to and I think you're going to love it."

That was that. I got taken to the local gay clubs and I had a string of invitations to parties with Nat. I made-out with so many people it was like being back in 7th grade. I didn't do too shabby when it came to the more serious stuff either.

There was April, with all the tattoos and _that_ piercing.

There was Nadia with the accent.

There was Cristina who taught me how to talk dirty in Spanish.

There was Kelly – dancer, tall, with blue eyes. Took me a while to notice she was a brunette Brittany.

And then there was Vanessa…

It was towards the end of the summer and some of the college kids were back in town so Nat took me to a frat party. We'd been there about an hour when she walked in…

Thigh-high boots with 4-inch come-fuck-me heels and the smallest, tightest, brightest green dress you could possibly imagine.

Nat was talking to me but I couldn't hear what she was saying and I couldn't respond because my tongue had dried up inside my mouth. I would never admit this to Brittany but Vanessa was the hottest thing I had **ever** seen.

Five foot nothing, Cambodian, the smoothest, warmest looking skin a person could have, with flame-red dyed hair. And she had this energy. Power and confidence and sex just rolled off her in waves. I think everyone in the room lost several IQ points just by looking at her. Including me, who had spent the summer breaking hearts and taking names, reduced to a quivering mess.

I stood 15 feet away from her, nursing the same drink for the next hour. Natalia thought it was hilarious that I was so paralysed by this girl and she promptly left me to go to another bit of the party.

As for me, aside from being transfixed by the girl in front of me, I was having an inner battle. This didn't happen to me. Doesn't happen to me. I'm always in control. I have to be to survive. I don't swoon or come over coy or nervous. If someone catches my eye I go for it, so the whole situation left me at a loss.

The closest I'd ever come to anything like this was with Brittany or Kady. There was a small voice at the back of my mind pointing out that I couldn't imagine ever, _ever_ getting like this over a guy.

I was still silently arguing with myself when I noticed she was no longer stood by the drinks table in front of me. My chest tightened and I started to panic when I heard a voice in my ear.

"Looking for somebody?"

I turned around and there she stood. A vision - right in front of me. And her voice! As if there wasn't enough to obsess over, her voice had this crazy gravel to it with a layer of honey over the top.

"I'm Vanessa. And to whom do I owe my thanks for all these flattering looks?"

She was shaking my hand. My brain seemed to warn me in advance before my nerves actual let me feel what her touch was doing to me (by the way, you arm is about to have its very own orgasm, get ready).

I was struggling to maintain my body temperature under 4000 degrees when I managed to choke out a breathless,

"Santana"

"Mmm" a perfect tongue emerged to lick her lips, "like the guitarist? Black Magic Woman? Your love is _so smooth_."

She reached out and settled her hands on my hips, pressing her thumbs into my pelvis.

On reflex, I bucked into her hands. It was only a small movement but I knew she had felt it by the smirk that spread across her face revealing perfectly pearly teeth.

At that moment you could have easily convinced me she was either an angel or a devil.

She gave me one more long look and led my over to meet some of her friends. We stayed at the party for another 20 minutes and her hands never stopped touching me. After finding Nat and asking her to cover for me, Vanessa took me back to her place.

The next 72 hours are a blur. We had the type of sex that poets write about when they're off their head on LSD. We ate takeout in her bed and took baths and talked about a whole bunch of next level stuff I'd never spoken to anyone about. Like philosophy and shit. Her power over me was incredible. I couldn't get enough of her in every way. I wanted to know everything about her.

.

I didn't notice it until later but something changed in me when I was with Vanessa. For the first time I had really connected with someone and I hadn't let that scare me.

.

.

What really fucking sucked about Brittany starting up with Artie wasn't that I wouldn't be getting any, I knew I'd soon find a way around that. It wasn't even that I had to share her yet again. It was that, after Vanessa, it made me start to think about how maybe I wanted what other people had.

Whatever is was that made Tina act like a fucking lunatic and cry when trying to sing a Valentine's song to Mike. Whatever it was that made Puck become even more of a moron and follow that wildebeest Lauren around. Whatever it is that makes you stick with one person and really show them what you're all about.

It made me start to think about how maybe I wanted a relationship. And of course any relationship I'm in would be way less lame than everybody else's. It would be full of sex and social domination. And of course I wanted that with Brittany.

The thing was tohugh, when I was pissed at her for blowing me off to hang around with Mr. Roboto, or when I was trying to imagine my life without her, I'd think about what it would be like if Kady transferred to McKinley. What it would be like if I went to college in Florida and was near Vanessa. What if that redheaded nurse that worked with my father left her husband and we ran away to the Bahamas together.

I could imagine days spent lounging around in bed or doing domestic shit like cooking and reading the paper together. And I could imagine it with an endless parade of women. Sure, when it came to imagining laughing with them, holding them; they all inevitably morphed into Brittany. Turns out I was fucking in love with her.

But even more fucking than terrifying than that, was the realisation that even if I wasn't, I could only picture myself really _being _with girls.

I get wound-up even imagining being in a relationship with a guy. None of them are worth the fucking effort. I have guy friends who I can hang with because I in no way want to do them and I have been with guys that were skilled in getting me off.

Puck is the only crossover (I don't ever particularly _want_ to do him, but my knowledge that he fits he second criteria allows me to over look that) but the thought of being in a real relationship with Puck makes me vomit in my mouth.

It's no use. All these years of thinking I was a wild, experimenting teenager: a free spirit. Turns out I'm just plain fucking gay.

Fantastic.


	5. I like Brittany

**A/N: Yay for Story Alerters! :)**

* * *

><p><strong>I like Brittany…<strong>

.

.

.

Things may be confusing as hell right now but I will never not like Brittany.

.

.

One of Mike Chang's infamous parties happened in the week before sophomore year started up.

Looking back, that was probably the last week things were… normal. Brittany was just my best friend, Quinn was just a bitch, Finn was just a goon, the social hierarchy was in order and nobody was pregnant. I was starting back as a Cheerio, which meant I got to rule the school and I didn't know or care jack-shit about any Glee club.

.

Puck called a couple of days before the party to let me know about it. I was with Quinn at the time and she got pissed at me because I was still talking to him. She was sticking with her chastity club shtick and kept telling me that I should avoid him now I was no longer "tainting myself" by dating him. She got even more pissed when I explained that Puck and I had at no point decided we were going to give up doing the nasty with each other just because we weren't dating anymore. I explained in quite graphic detail, his particular talents that I wasn't willing to lose privileges to. She stormed out before I got to the _really_ good stuff.

I found out later it was at that very party, in Mike's guest room, where Quinn did the deed with Puck herself and got knocked up. I always wondered if my description of his techniques was partly to blame. If I'd have known I could have told her that when Puck is drunk he is terrible at everything and that she shouldn't have gotten within 6 feet of him without about, like, 8 condoms.

But I kinda forgot Quinn was ever pissed at me because the day before the party was the day that Brittany got back to Lima. We got to spend the day hanging out, just the two of us, for the first time in ages. Freshman year had been weird for us. We spent nearly all day, every day together and yet we never really talked. Quinn was suddenly in charge and we were always a three, never just a two. Plus Michael distracted me for a lot of the year and Brittany was distracted by anything with a pulse. But that one day, at the very end of summer, when we spent it eating every disgusting snack food we could find in her house (knowing we'd soon be under Sylvester law again), gossiping, dancing round the backyard, we fixed any issue of distance we'd ever had and fell right back into being best friends. We agreed to meet at my house the next day and get ready for the party together.

When Brittany arrived at my house she was wearing workout clothes and had apparently come straight from the dance studio. She explained she was just planning to shower at my house and then raid my closet. I didn't see a problem with that until she was stood dripping wet, wrapped in a towel, flipping her way through my clothes.  
>Brittany and I had made out a bunch of times before and of course I knew she was hot (I have eyes!), but after my <em>enlightening<em> summer experiences with Kady I was suddenly perving on my best friend whilst she got changed. To be honest it made me feel like a skeeze and I generally never feel like anything less than a hot-to-trot-bad-ass-motherfucking-smoking-hottie.  
>When she turned round, I'm pretty sure Britt caught me staring because she gave me this outrageous smile that I'd seen her normally save for guys on the football team. She didn't say anything though and instead just asked me about my summer. I told her about Puck and about Quinn acting crazy and then I told her about camp and mentioned making friends with Kady. I told her how Kady was a bad-ass too and Britt gave me this big pouting look and said;<p>

"I don't like it when you have shiny new friends to play with. I only want you to play with me."

I swear to all that is Holy, I will remember that sentence and the way she said it, for the rest of my goddamn life. I'm pretty sure my mouth dropped open and I gawped at her. And Santana Lopez does not fucking gawp!

I managed to eventually shut my damn mouth and we both got dressed. Things went back to normal as we carried on primping and busting moves to my pre-party playlist. We were having some pre-party drinks too, courtesy of a bottle of Jack I found in my brother's room, but I was avoiding drinking too much in case I got too handsy and made a fool of myself.  
>I was sat by the mirror with my eyes closed, so Brittany could do my eyeshadow, humming along to Ne-Yo, when I noticed she hadn't touched my face in a while. I opened my eyes to find her looking down at me with this lazy smile on her face and her eyes all cloudy. I thought she'd just hit the Jack too hard.<p>

"I don't wanna go to Mike's party anymore."  
>"Britt, what are you talking about? It's the last party of the summer. It's gonna be poppin' and we needs to gets our dance on."<p>

I was waiting for her response when she suddenly sat on my lap, straddling me, threw her arms around my neck and swiped her tongue from the middle of my cleavage, up my neck and all the way to my jawline, just below my ear, before claiming my mouth with hers. I would have been mortified with how instantly wet I got, if I had been able to actually fucking think straight.  
>I could tell right away it was different to anything we'd done before. Partly because my brain was operating differently since Kady and was now filling my ears with screams to just fucking take her, and partly because the way Brittany was wildly grinding on my lap was completely new.<br>We made it to the bed just as 'Me and You' by Cassie starting playing. Now that song is hot-as-hell already but to this day I can't hear it without getting all sweaty and my pussy twitching like it's having a fucking seizure.

I don't wanna sound like a lame-ass when I tell you that what happened next blew my mind… but it's the fucking truth. I'm pretty sure I blacked out at one point. It was crazy hot.  
>It was everything at once. It was heat and passion and everything I'd discovered with Kady. It was with someone who knew me – inside out – and was well aware how to push my buttons; just like Puck. And it was with someone I knew cared about me, so there was a current of gentleness to it all, like there had been with Michael.<p>

But it was with Brittany. _Brittany_. My best friend. The person I cared about more than just about anybody in the world. Everything we had ever shared, every secret we had, every little thing we knew about each other, every way we had ever connected was wrapped up in that moment and it was... to be frank, it was fucking _beautiful_.

.

By the time we came down to reality it was late and our careful party preparations were strewn across the floor, the bed and our faces. We considered staying in but I was completely buzzed on adrenalin and ready to party and Britt was dying to dance, so we decided to go to the party. Neither of us showered and we put on new random outfits. I removed the worst of my eye make-up smudges and reapplied my lip-gloss to swollen lips. We left looking a lot less preened than earlier in the night but I was certain neither of us had ever looked sexier.

When we got to Mike's house it was gone midnight and there was already an array of kids making out and throwing up on his front lawn. I didn't notice though because I was on cloud-fucking-nine. I knew Britt and I were both smiling like a couple of lunatics and I was so full of energy and joy that I could have fucking clog danced on someone's head.

There was no sign of Quinn or Puck when we got inside (if only I'd fucking known) and Matt was chugging down a cupful over by the beer pong area so Britt and I were free to go straight to the dance floor. The night's activities inevitably resulted in our dancing being sorta outrageous and we did get a few comments but in general everyone was too wasted to notice us.  
>After a while I noticed I was hella dehydrated and managed to yell in Brittany's ear that I would get us some drinks, while peeling her limbs from around my body. I passed Karofsky by the stairs, nursing a beer and flipping through one of the Changs' Men's Health magazines, (it all makes so much sense now!) I managed to navigate my way through the kitchen only getting hit on twice and was back in the living room within a few minutes.<p>

I was greeted by the sight of Brittany sandwiched between two guys on the make-shift dance floor. One guy was behind her, grinding into her ass and the other was dancing with his leg between her thighs, his hands on her waist. The waist I could still under my fingertips from a few hours earlier. My hands balled into fists voluntarily and the drinks I'd got ended up on the floor.  
>I knew she wasn't drunk. The minor buzz we'd had earlier from the Jack had been worked off in bed - my bed - and I knew she hadn't had anything since we'd got here half an hour ago. She had just wanted to dance with these drunk assholes.<p>

Two fucking years later and I still can't really describe what I felt right then. I guess it was something like a whole-body lock down. I went rigid as the pole up Quinn's ass and couldn't move a muscle. My eyes went all tunnel-ly too, focusing on Brittany to the point where the edges of my vision went black. That's probably why I didn't notice Mike stood next to me until he spoke.

"You can never keep Brittany off the floor, huh?"

I didn't reply, just hoped he'd go away while I regained my motor functions. No such luck.

"She doesn't get it."  
>"What you yammerin' about Chow-Mien?"<p>

I couldn't stop staring at Brittany. Like it was a car crash or something.

"She's doesn't get that it'd hurt you. She just likes to dance."  
>"What? I..." I was panicking. Had she announced it too the room inbetween me leaving for the kitchen and her finding these douchebags? "I don't know what the hell-"<br>"Nobody has said anything. I mean, I don't _know_ anything. Not really."

I blinked my eyes to the side slightly but he wasn't looking at me, he was watching Brittany who was now being lifted by a whole bunch of basketball jocks.  
>I decided to plead the fifth until Mike left, my heart was still beating fast in anger and fear but I did want to know what he was talking about.<p>

"Britt isn't picky, right?" He must have seen the flash of fury on my face, "I-I mean between guys and girls," he rushed out. "And right now you look just like I did about 4 months ago. She was my… my first."

Well that I did not know.

"I thought I was in love with her. I thought she was in love with me.  
>She's the best dancer at this school and when we're paired together it feels like - felt like - that the energy between us has to mean something. And then we had this night... But a week after the fact and I see her making out with Brett Davis in his pick-up truck."<br>"Sounds about right."  
>"I was pissed at the time but I realised she wasn't doing it on purpose to hurt me. She just doesn't get it."<p>

I turned to look at him again and he was gone.

I got my shit together, found my coat and left the party. I was half way down the block when Brittany came bounding after me.

"You forgot to tell me you were leaving silly Sanny." I bit my tongue.

We walked back to my house in silence but in two very different moods. When we got back we slept in my bed and with her wrapped around me again, I could almost forget.

.

When I woke up the next morning, still tangled in her legs, I didn't know what I'd been so pissed at. And when she left to see a guy a few hours after we woke up, I didn't mind. Almost.

.

Then we were fine. We were fine for a _year_. More than fine actually. For more than a year.

.

.

Every time I was with Brittany it was different. Sure, sometimes it was a quickie in the janitor's closet or the locker room. Fierce and freaky and hot. Could be when we were dating people - once we did it when I was on my way to a date with Justin Dagny from the basketball team.  
>But sometimes we would go weeks without hooking up with anyone else. We slept over at each other's houses. We could be slow and romantic. We did the whole candlelight, dessert in bed scenario more than once. It just became part of like, routine - but not in like a boring, monotonous way - just in way that became an integral part of who we were to each other.<p>

.

Then the duet assignment came up.

And fuck me, but I did not see that shit coming. The duet we'd done in sophomore year was really fun: Drop It Like It's Hot by Snoop Dogg. Seemed to me the only difference now was that there was the potential of free breadstix and I was hyped for the whole thing.

"We should sing Melissa Etheridge's 'Come To My Window'."

I mean, what the ever-loving fuck? She just threw it out there, the same way she always says everything, like it was no big deal. Like we hadn't spent that past year hooking up without ever talking about it. Like she hadn't been all over some fucking creeps _hours _after we were first together. Like she could go a week without swapping saliva with some loser at school or boning the first guy she meets on the street. Like she had some fucking claim over me.  
>I hadn't told her about my summer with Vanessa and all the other shit and she hadn't asked. She did what she liked. Fucked whom she liked. And now I was supposed to declare some fucking <em>intentions<em> to her in front of everybody and just deal with the shitstorm that would come my way? Well, Fuck. That. Shit.  
>I said something bitchy back in the hopes of shutting her up and moving past it but she started in with some more bullshit so I rolled off her.<p>

My first reaction was to get super pissed off and so I thought about my normal first response, which is work out my rage with Puck so I don't take that shit out on Brittany for being inadvertently blunt the way she sometimes is. Then I remembered the douche was in juvie after getting caught being the dickwad he is. I was only concerned about the fact now it was proving to be inconvenient for me. Fucking Puck.

The next thing that hit me was that Puck not being around hadn't been a problem until now because we hadn't hooked up for a while.  
>Then I was suddenly super conscious that I hadn't slept with a guy since Brad the runner dude and that was practically at the beginning of summer, like 4 months ago.<p>

So I ran my mouth off with some defensive crap about lizards and lady-babies and got the hell out of there.

.

.

She doesn't get it.


	6. I like singing

**A/N: Well, this is the last chapter guys! It's the longest fic I've written so I'm glad I finished it. Also, I'm in love with idea of a Sancedes friendship so there is quite a bit of that in here.**

**A/N: Bonus points for spotting the Dawson's Creek reference**

* * *

><p><strong>I like… singing<strong>

.

.

.

I've always known I liked singing but who knew it can actually help you with working through stuff?

.

I knew I needed a kick-ass duet partner after ditching Brittany and I knew that attitude was my best shot at winning. My choice was obvious: Mercedes. After I got her on board I felt myself calm down a little. I'd find Brittany, explain my plan with Mercedes to her and we could go back to normal.

What do I discover the next day instead? Her asking Artie fucking Abrams to wheel her round the dance floor. Then she's pushing him round like a shopping cart and telling me we can't hook up. I'm pretty sure she only asked him because she knows he's the person in glee I hate the most, even back then I couldn't stand him.  
>She did this messed up no-boobs-for you wave in the middle of the fucking hallway and when I turned round to go to class I found Aretha stood behind me with this confused ass look on her face like she'd been asked to consider life without her fucking tots. I didn't bother giving her nosy ass any further insight.<p>

"We need to practice tonight and then we need to fucking win this thing."

.

.

We picked a song pretty quickly – Diva by Beyoncé. (After all she was really the only person that could do the combined attitude of me and Mercedes any justice.) We'd been practicing for about an hour, working out some steps, dividing up verses, when Mercedes marched over to the computer, turned the music off and turned to face me with her head cocked to the side and her hands on her hips.

"What the hell is up with you?"  
>"What are you talking about Wheezy? I'm rocking this."<br>"You're singing like you wanna pound on somebody."  
>"The song's called 'Diva' right? I'm just giving it the swag it needs."<br>"Swag? It's more like murderous death stare."

She was still staring at me so I moved behind her to flip through the Beyoncé tracks, turning the volume all the way up.

"That song is tired anyway. We should do this instead."

The sirens at the beginning of 'Ring The Alarm' rang through the room and I heard Mercedes yell over the noise.

"Girl, have you lost your damn mind?"

When the bass kicked in and Bey started screaming I joined in. I could feel my body start to radiate heat from the anger I'd been keeping squashed down all week. I was just starting to get some kind of release when Mercedes stopped the track and the room was plunged into silence.

"I thought you wanted to win?" she looked more genuinely puzzled and had lost the pissed off front.  
>"I do. That's why we need a great song." I decided to ignore the fact that I was still burning up and my breathing was ragged. "We need to make the audience feel something, right?"<br>"Yeah - entertained. Not fearful for their lives." I just blinked in response and remained in a standoff. "Is this about Brittany?" At least she had the good grace to look scared as she asked. "Why don't you just do your duet with her?"  
>"Listen Mahalia, I thought unlimited supplies of triple mayonnaise potato salad would be enough of an incentive to get you off your ass to sing."<br>"First of a- wait. You listen to Mahalia Jackson? You're _comparing_ **me** to Mahalia Jackson?" A stupid smile worked its way across her face as she took it as a compliment.  
>"Yeah, well she <em>was<em> a fat-ass like you." She was still smiling at turned her back to look at the computer. Further proof of how the glee club losers are becoming impervious to my bitchiness and fear techniques.  
>"Okay Santana. You want a diva? Want attitude? Want to feel something?" Her fat-ass was big enough to block my view of the computer screen so I couldn't see what she was putting on. "Then what we need is Miss Tina Turner."<p>

.

.

The day of our performance I walked into the choir room in time to see Rachel turned round in her seat whispering to Kurt.

"It's official."  
>"So she's his girlfriend now?"<br>"That's what Finn said Artie is telling all the guys on the football team."

I worked on keeping my face void of any emotions as my mind started spinning. Mercedes was sat next to Kurt but looking straight ahead. Lord knows that girl loves to gossip so I was confused about why she wasn't joining in. Whatever the reason I felt pretty relieved as I took my seat next to her.

_Official girlfriend?_ I'd known Brittany six years and she'd never been anybody's official anything. She didn't stick with a lab-partner long enough to finish an assignment. And now she was _dating_ the Borg? They'd never even fucking spoken before this week!  
>Mercedes interrupted my thoughts just in time to stop my mind turning into scrambled eggs.<p>

"We're going to kill it today. Those Breadstix tokens are ours."  
>"Mm-mm." I managed to force out a response as Brittany wheeled Artie in and they sat on the front row. "I like the pink shirt. You look hot today." The compliment slipped out before I had time to filter it. Apparently I was becoming fucking nice to her or something.<p>

I didn't look over to see her response and acted like I'd never said anything.

"Let's do this then." And then we were getting up and facing with our backs to the audience for the start.

The second those horns started in with our intro, everything changed. It was the song - that fucking song - which I couldn't wait to sing in all of glee clubs smug faces. To my left I saw Mercedes hair whip out to the side as she spun around and I launched into the choreography as well. The routine we had come up with was so damn sassy I wasn't surprised to see drooling faces courtesy of Finn, Mike and Sam the second we turned around. Mercedes was belting it out doing her thang and I could feel my every vulnerability from the past week close up as I twirled and started my line.

_River deep, mountain high  
><em>_If I lost you, would I cry?_

Rag-dolls and school packs and faithful puppies. Why does singing about this crap make it so much better?

Brittany and I **do** go river fucking deep. We're best friends for fuck's sake. I didn't have to cry about losing her because I hadn't lost shit.  
>Who gave a shit if she was his 'girlfriend'? We'd see how long that lasted. 4 days ago she wanted to sing some queer anthem with me and now she was the good little hetero dating a cripple? She had slept with every guy at this school and barely remembered their names so what threat was C3P0 to me? I couldn't see it being a problem continuing to hook up with her. I'd show up to her house in my black pant suit that I'd worn for 'Express Yourself' last year, no blouse underneath, and we'd be fucking on her kitchen floor in no time.<br>Because that's all I was really pissed at: the knock to status quo. It wasn't like _I_ wanted to date her or anything.

Jesus - that was a simpler time. Denial is a seriously underappreciated way to deal.

.

.

So Mercedes and I didn't win. Whatever – we was robbed. We ended up going to Breadstix anyway though. I had to get my Stix on and she convinced me that just paying for ourselves was a better idea than jumping Sam and Quinn in the parking lot (though less satisfying).

We had a good time. Like, we kind of get on when we're both not fighting over something. She has this devil trick where she's all silent but it's _nice_. It's just kind of comforting. Like she's being supportive but she's not actually getting in your business.  
>Everyone in glee damn well knew that Britt had popped the robotic cherry and I think Mercedes knew about how I got up in Britt and Artie's business after the fact, but she didn't bug me about it.<p>

So things were super weird between Britt and me but were still talking at least. It looked like maybe I actually wouldn't be getting any for a while, but Puck would be out of juvie soon enough. Kurt and Rachel sang some lame duet for the assignment that turned out to be kind of awesome and Quinn started being slightly less of a raging hormonal cow when fish-lips stuck around. I started to feel like maybe the school year would turn out to be okay.

Ever wish you travel back in time just to slap yourself up-side the head?

.

.

Junior year blew. I mean it was totally hellacious. Sophomore year I was riding high and having fun and then I got stuck in this year of hell that sucked. I mean it sucked up one side and down the other.  
>Seems like opening myself up to liking stuff has only made everything else in my life that much shittier.<p>

What started out as an argument between Brittany and me over a duet assignment led on to me dropping out of Cheerios, getting slushied, a locker full of dirt, Berry calling me a stripper, admitting _feelings_ in front of glee club, finally admitting this gay shit to _myself_, failing to become Prom Queen and being a beard to an ogre. We didn't even do well at Nationals.

The only good thing that came out of the whole year was the masterpiece that is 'Trouty Mouth'. That shit is going on my first album.

.

.

The worst thing about the year, by **far**, was telling Brittany how I felt – actually saying _'I love you' _- and watching her fail to tell me back.

Hearing what she said was pretty difficult over the blood pounding in my ears but I think she did actually say 'I love you' back. But one look at her face told me we weren't on the same page.  
>She also, helpfully clarified things for me when she told me she picked that fucking human skid-mark in a wheelchair over me.<p>

I managed to get to my car before too many people saw me crying. Plus, I was parked in the corner of the lot so I was free to bawl my eyes out for 40 minutes without being seen. Part of me thought she might come after me.

After all the crying I went numb. I felt completely blank. Like every part of me had left my body and all that was left was this voice in my head laughing its ass off.  
>Because ever since the duet disaster it had been hanging over me, a nagging feeling, implied but never said. I believed that if I could just choke out the words and finally admit how I felt, she would change her mind.<p>

She would want to be with me. Only me.  
>That all this fear I've been crippled by, all the panic and shame would be pointless because she'd be by my side.<br>That I'd get back from the kitchen at Mike Chang's party and she'd be waiting for me, smiling and stood with open arms.

The crying was nothing i couldn't handle but that voice in my head still hasn't stopped laughing.

.

.

I was ready to give up at that point. Drop out of school, move out of state. Maybe start up a drug habit or take the pygmy's advice and just work on the pole.

When I turned the ignition the radio started up on the station I'd been listening to that morning. It was some obnoxious pop shit. They were all so freakin' happy and all so in love. When I got home all I wanted to do was listen to something that didn't make me feel like someone was sneezing puppies and rainbows into my ears. The obvious solution?

'You Oughta Know' by Alanis Morissette

Goddamn that song knows what it's about.

iPod speakers on max I got 4minutes 9seconds of relief from feeling like my internal organs were imploding.  
>Then the next track came on: 'Perfect' and it really wasn't. It was softly softly when I was still after rage. Rage was better than what I was feeling right now. So I went back to the last track and put it on repeat. If the song was on I couldn't feel anything outside of it. If I could here Alanis screaming her pain I couldn't hear my own.<p>

After 6 or 7 times I was sick of the shitty quality of my bedroom speakers so I grabbed my iPod and headed down to the family room where my Dad keeps his super fancy sound system.  
>Volume as high as it would go I started again. I could see stuff on the coffee table vibrating from the force of the speakers.<p>

I was singing along – of course. Apart from it being the type of song you have to sing along to, as I sang I could it feel dislodge things that were stuck at the back of my throat and in the pit of my stomach.  
>This was more than just making pretty sounds with my voice. This was real singing.<p>

The energy in the song drops every time a new verse starts and I was given a moment of peace with no inner-laughter, no tears and no hurt. Just serenity.  
>I sang so long and so hard that my lungs burned with lack of oxygen and my legs were shaking with adrenalin.<p>

I'd been at it 20 minutes when my mom came home. She didn't say anything, just stood there, arms full of groceries, staring at me.

"I didn't break anything." It was all I could manage to choke out through my breathlessness.

My mom just gave me this shrug-nod and went into the kitchen.

It was the truth as well.  
>For the first time since I was nine I reacted to anger and pain without violence. I'd call that growth.<p>

.

.

"How do you get the band geeks to practice with you in the auditorium when it's not even for glee?"

I'd been keeping my head down in school ever since I got a bunch of questions about why I showed up at celibacy club but I decided to block Berry on her way to class to get an answer to my question.

"Hello Santana. You know, you could have asked me this yesterday when we spent 2 hours together in glee. Instead you contributed nothing to our rehearsal and are now choosing to keep me from an important geography class."  
>"There's no such thing as an important geography class Danny DeVito so just answer the damn question."<br>"Well, I am quite persistent in convincing them the situation in mutually beneficial."  
>"So, you just annoy them into submission?"<br>"I use my skills to _convince_ them Santana. Maybe it would be wise for you to simply use your own skills if you wish to rehearse a private project."  
>"Cutting to the point…"<br>"You have a certain penchant for intimidation. Quite frankly I'm surprised it wasn't your first solution."

I was a little embarrassed to admit that Rachel was right and I normally would have just bullied the band into doing this. I guess I wanted willing participants for what I had in mind.  
>After a week of singing angry rock at my house I wanted to actually <em>do<em> something with it. I wanted to work it into my own like we did with songs in glee but I wanted to do it for me.

It turns out just talking to Brad the Piano Man gets you all the pull with the musicians you need. He is their Lord and master. Their silent Lord and master.

.

.

So there I was, after school in the choir room, sheet music bought off Amazon in my hand, stood in front of a 12 piece band with them waiting instruction.  
>I didn't elaborate about what they were doing there, I just set them to work.<br>I worked out the best key and tempo for my voice, the drummer listened to me and proceeded to rock it, the guitars fell into place and the brass guys even found a way to fit into the song.  
>Brad kept making small changes to the piano music that the others fell in line with and he gave me these facial nods and flicks that helped shape my vocals.<p>

We stayed really late and no one said anything about it. No one bitched or complained and by the time we doing whole run-throughs I could see everyone smirking to themselves. I had a brief panic that it was because they worked out what I was singing about but then I realised it was actually because we sounded amazing.

I lost myself in it. And it was unbelievable.

I had started this because it was helping me to deal but in turn, my messed up head was taking the whole performance to the next level. Once we had it down there was no stopping us.  
>The guitars were wailing, the drummer was a machine and I must have sung through the chorus a hundred times. We just kept going.<p>

I have performed in front of big crowds with Cheerios and glee but right then I knew this was the best thing I'd ever done.  
>It finally wrapped up when we were all too exhausted to carry on. The band geeks didn't talk to me, like normal, but I got a lot of nods and a couple of them even slapped me on the back. It would have been gross if it hadn't made me feel like I was a motherfuckin'-G.<p>

Brad was the last one to leave the room.

"Think we can do this again tomorrow? Maybe in the auditorium?"  
>He looked at his watch and pulled a questioning face.<br>"Lunchtime? That way there's a time limit."  
>He nodded like the Yoda he is and left me feeling happy and human for the first time in a week.<p>

.

.

I knew I couldn't handle anyone watching me be that open and honest on stage (it's different when people are performing on stage with you) but I also knew that I needed someone to witness what I'd done.

"I've been working on something outside of glee. I'm doing it this lunchtime in the auditorium. You should come and watch. See how attitude is really done."  
>"Pass."<br>"What? You scared I'm gonna be better than you?" Mercedes just rolled her eyes. "Whatever. Just don't bring anyone else. The rest of glee can't handle all a'this at its most awesome."  
>"I don't remember saying I was gonna be there."<br>"What am I keeping you from your weave appointment?"  
>"Girl please, you have more store-bought hair up on your head than I do." Touché.<p>

Dammit, why did I kinda love her now?

.

.

_'cause the joke that you laid on the bed that was me  
>And I'm not gonna fade<br>As soon as you close your eyes and you know it  
>And every time I scratch my nails down someone else's back<br>I hope you feel it...well can you feel it?_

_Well, I'm here to remind you_  
><em>Of the mess you left when you went away<em>  
><em>It's not fair to deny me<em>  
><em>Of the cross I bear that you gave to me<em>  
><em>You, you, you oughta know<em>

.

.

The stage lights were on, so at first I didn't even know if she had turned up. I tried not to think about it. I was singing for me. The energy of the night before was there again as soon as we started up and it sounded just... _beyond_.

At one point I was bent over, with the mic close to the floor, trying to make sure the power in my voice didn't shift into me just screaming. I saw her sat about halfway back. She was on her own, bag on the seat next to her, hands in her lap and her face was unreadable.

It was over all too fast and then the band were whooping and hollering their applause. Even Brad looked pretty psyched. I looked over to Mercedes and she was clapping but it seemed kind of like polite applause. She didn't even stand up.

Everyone packed up quickly in order to get to afternoon classes but Mercedes didn't move from her seat. After I'd helped put the microphone equipment away, I walked down to sit next to her where she was still staring at the stage.  
>She didn't say anything for an age and I was torn between nervousness at hearing what she thought and wanting to yell at her to say something.<p>

"You should fight Mr Schue for a solo in New York.  
>Singing like that…" She shook her head. "But don't sing that song. It's too…. It was like watching…"<p>

She turned her head to look at me in the half-light.

"I don't think you want to use all of that just to win a competition."  
>I had no idea what to say but she had a point.<p>

"You wanna talk about it?"  
>I didn't say anything. She got the picture anyway.<p>

"Miss Turner would have been proud. And you're lucky Rachel didn't see that or she'd cut your vocal chords out in your sleep."

That got a laugh from me.

.

.

Since then, things with Brittany haven't exactly been easier. She still doesn't quite get it. Maybe she never will, just like Mike said.

But now I have a weapon.  
>I know that out of all that mess I can create something that matters.<br>Tina and I crafted the wonder that is Trouty Mouth. Then sometimes it's just Brad and me in the choir room jamming until my voice breaks. Sometimes it's me singing acapella in my bedroom. Sometimes I drive out of town and sit in my car screaming along to my iPod.

Singing is fixing the things in me that life keeps breaking.

.

.

.

.

Two years after glee entered my world I honestly can't tell if it was a good thing or not. For every amazing experience I've had, every rush on stage or new 'friend' I've made, there's been a moment of humiliation and horror to counter it.  
>Whether I'm glad or not doesn't change the fact that I've got one more year left of high school and I know that whatever happens I want to be in glee until the end.<p>

Because good or bad I do know that **I like** being in glee club.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: Thanks for everyone who read this! and even though it's finished, reviews are always appreciated.**

**I have a follow on fic that's another Sancedes friendship that should be up soon.**


End file.
